Libous: Good-government advocates should “get real jobs”

Binghamton Sen. Thomas Libous, who is the No. 2 Republican in his chamber, said good government groups who criticized recent closed-door budget negotiations and Tuesday’s late-night voting session should stop complaining and “get real jobs.”

Libous touted what looks like it will be the third on-time budget in a row during an interview with Gannett’s Albany Bureau Tuesday night. The Senate convened after 9:30 p.m. for a planned all-night voting session.

He said the chamber would gavel out at midnight and gavel in again at 12:01 a.m. Wednesday in order to vote on remaining budget bills. The final bills were introduced Sunday night, so senators had to wait three days to consider them to avoid using a “message of necessity” to skip the aging period.

Good government groups complained that the closed-door negotiation process between Gov. Andrew Cuomo, Senate leaders Dean Skelos and Jeffrey Klein and Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver was nontransparent, as was the late voting.

Libous responded Tuesday: “I’ve been here for 25 years; I’ve heard it for 25 years. No matter what you do, they’re never happy. They’re not happy because it’s done in the middle of the night. Before, they used to be not happy because we got messages of necessity.

“Look it, they need to go get real jobs or something, because it’s just very frustrating to have them complain about the process. And yet, we reform the process. We do better with the process, and they still complain.”